The world's largest river island -V

The 'lazy' locals

Staying with families in Majuli, one more contradiction has been brought sharply to focus. You see them at work from before daybreak to well after night has fallen — on the fields, in the river, in the home — an unending stream. Even the 'spare time' is taken up crafting ubhotis (fish traps) or repairing nets, weaving, or just working around the house, putting in thatch, cutting grass for the animals. Yet everywhere you go, you hear the refrain, oh, people are lazy, they don't work. None of the families that we have lived with have had much to do with the government, few had received loans or houses, but other than that, it was very self-managed. Yet you only have to visit a government office, and you will hear, oh, the people are so dependent on government handouts, they just don't do anything on their own. The most classic example of this attitude is in the implementation of the Indira Awaas Yojana, a government housing programme. In an area where everybody, starting from youth, is a house builder, the government has a policy of carrying out all the construction through middlemen. The logic is the same as earlier — the people don't know what's best for them, they don't do any work, and they're so poor that the money that is supposed to go into housing will get spent on food, and repaying debts, so it's in everybody's best interest that the houses are built by a third party — at least then there's a guarantee that they'll actually be built!

I asked the Senior Block Development Officer why the money couldn't go directly to the people, or through the panchayat? I suggested that the profit earned by the contractor might be better spent on construction, since the families were very poor—but he had been well indoctrinated by the party line, so dialogue was difficult. One more interesting development in Majuli was that till a couple of months ago there was wholesale cutting of himolu, a valuable timber specie that was earlier available in plenty on the island. In a land rocked by poverty, the temptation to sell your natural resources is great, especially when the money involved is of a greater magnitude than can ever be earned by 'honest work'. The technique is very simple — cut, bind together in a raft, float down to a point outside Jorhat. From there make a phone call, and in a while a truck arrives, with all the pay-offs en route made in advance. From there a safe ride to the godown.

Last month a simple poster made its appearance in the bazaars: 'Trees are valuable, don't cut trees, preserve and protect the environment.' A simple, almost rhetorical plea — yet it was prefaced by the symbol of a rising sun, and signed 'United Liberation Front' (ULFA). That had moral authority enough to stop the felling. The forest department and the police together could never have achieved this impact.

At this point it is hardly appropriate to get into motives—it could be from a genuine concern for the environment, or just a way of getting back at the SULFA controlled timber trade—but whatever the reason, it's been good for the island and the people.

Water, water everywhere
July 1996

The last month has gone by in a haze. The waters dried up as quickly as they had risen, leaving the stench of rotting leaves and earthworms that pervades the island, hanging heavy in the dank, hot summer afternoons.

We were faced with an ethical dilemma. We had resolved not to get directly involved with work in Majuli for the first year that we would spend there, using the time instead to develop an understanding of the people, the culture, the problems — so that when we finally worked with communities to develop some interventions, they would be appropriate, not designed in an NRI sense, in Dispur or Delhi. But the floods changed all that. We had received so much by way of help, co-operation and love and affection from the people we had been staying with and learning from, at this stage when they were going through such a difficult time, it didn't seem right that we should watch while the island drowned, all in the interest of academic detachment. So we plunged in. We decided that we would try and provide potable drinking water to families that had abandoned their homes and were living on the embankments, by boring tubewells, and run a medical boat relief service around the island.

We pulled in as many people as we could to help. The Marwari Relief Society from Jorhat provided us ten tubewells, the Voluntary Health Association of India gave us a donation for medicines, Oxfam underwrote the costs of our boat hire, the Rotary and Lions clubs provided some medicines, the Indo-German Social Service Society gave us funds for twenty-five tubewells, the local ferry lessee in Kamlabari allowed us to transport our equipment for free. The Majuli District Branch of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and the Assam Jatiyabadi Yuba Chhatra Parishad (AJYCP), two active student organisations, helped us with volunteers, and locating the places in need. People in the houses around where we live chipped in with labour, including one night pushing a truck laden with pipes one kilometre. Jugal Hazarika, the founder of a local voluntary organisation called Seuj Bandhu, virtually moved in with us, after evacuating his own family (his own house was submerged as well), and became a full-fledged member of the team, setting out at daybreak and returning whenever work finished — either late that night, or even after a couple of days, in case we were headed far out. Fifteen days on adrenaline and tea, interspersed with bananas whenever we could manage it, and sheera and sugar. We travelled mostly by boat, a small five horsepower driven craft called a dhuk-dhukky, for its peculiar Bullet motorcycle-like sound, identifiable from as far as an mile away.

The modalities of work were quite simple. We first met with the government official concerned, and got a list of affected sites. Then we asked the same question of our collaborators, AASU and the AJYCP, and quickly cut down the list to thirty. We would then go and visit every village, to have detailed discussions with people on where the best site would be, and clearly define who would take responsibility — now, that the tubewell was on the embankment, and later, when it would be shifted to a public place in the village — near the naamghar, the school, or any other place the people considered necessary. Having done that, we would then sign a legal-looking document, more from the point of sanctifying the decision, rather than making it an enforceable contract. Initially we went around with the equipment, and three mistris, in a hired boat, and would actually see that the equipment was set up while we were there — but later, as our reach increased, we gave the responsibility for the installation to the local people, with a three-day moratorium. In case it was not installed in three days, we would take the well back. The responsibility for paying for the installation, which came to approximately one hundred and fifty rupees, was also left to the people, who would
collect contributions and manage.

Working in this way had several advantages. Since we were going through the elders in the village, and the existing voluntary organisations—the mahila samitis and the juba sanghas — our supervision responsibility was considerably reduced. Our costs were reduced, since the transport from Kamlabari would be borne by the village that was taking the tubewell, and the installation expense was also less. And most importantly, it gave people a sense of participation. For the first time they were being asked where they felt the well should be installed, and the discussion was not being held in the house of the ward member, but in the open, in front of the entire village community.

Doing it cheap had an interesting spin-off as well. The Deputy Commissioner said that he was paying twice the amount to the Public Health Department, but they weren't able to manage — how was it that we were doing it so cheaply? It transpired that the Public Health Department was given more funds because they were supposed to bore deeper, and using different technology — but in the villages, talking to people, as well as the mistris who actually did the boring for the department, we found that they were drilling the same depth, and using the same technology that we were. So where was the money going?

Of course, there were local problems as well. When the situation was really serious, and it was impossible for us to travel to more than three sites in a day, we asked people to hold the discussions in the village themselves, and just bring us the signed agreement. That was a mistake. In three cases that we followed up, the person had just gone to a couple of houses and got the signatures, and installed the tubewell in front of his house—but because he was influential, and most people thought that this was a government relief programme, there were no complaints, and we had to ferret out the information. In two cases, people came and took the tubewell, but were waiting for the water to dry up before installing it, defeating the purpose!

Perhaps the only people who were reluctant to co-operate were the local administration. We spent hours entangled in their bureaucracy. I would reach the sub-divisional headquarters at Garamur, after an hour's travel from Kamlabari, sometimes having to heft the cycle on my back and wade through waist-deep water, wait for the ferry, and then cycle the remaining distance, a sort of daily decathlon. Reaching at ten, I would take a boat ride to the SDO's office, also under water. Predictably there would be no one in the office. After waiting till eleven, the first signs of life would show, with the SDO himself stepping elegantly out of his personal machine boat, gingerly walking in his gumboots to his room. There his inevitable response would be, go and meet EAC Bora. (For a long time I thought these were initials, till I figured out he meant Extra Assistant Commissioner). EAC Bora is a consummate bureaucrat, obviously deeply committed to his work of keeping the files pending. First he tells me, you're an NGO, we don't recognise you, can't deal with you directly, please come through the SDMO (meaning medical officer). Fortunately through years of dealing with semi-literate government officials means I am prepared. 'The SDMO has already written to you, sir — here is a copy.' 'Well, I haven't received it.'

(Excerpted with permission from Sanjoy's Assam, edited by Sumita Ghosh and Published by Penguin Books India)